The Jezebel (Taskill Witches 3)

“Better?”

She nodded, forcing herself to take a deep breath. The rigid bulk of his cock was hot and throbbing against her tender flesh, but she could tell he was holding back, waiting for her to get used to his presence there. Thankful for his care, she wrapped her hands around his shoulders and rocked her hips, getting the measure of him and the way they fitted together. Then she found that she could clasp his hardness within, welcoming him.

“Ah,” he said, through gritted teeth, “now it is me who is nearly come apart.” The muscles in his neck were rigid with restraint. “Go steady or I will not be able to hold back.”

She nodded again. “Show me,” she whispered, encouraging him to lead the way.

His eyes gleamed. Needing no further encouragement, he moved his hips, pulled back and then plunged deep, an action he repeated immediately, over and over again, until Maisie thought she might faint from the pressure he built there at the pit of her belly.

“Yes, oh, yes,” she murmured, nearly delirious under him.

Pleasure and power welled inside her, its intensity threatening to overwhelm her. “Please,” she whispered, begging for something she wasn’t sure of.

“Eager again now,” he commented with humor. “I like that.”

The need inside her was feverish and her hips rocked to meet his as she sought her release. It shocked her how it took charge, how driven by instinct they both became.

The captain pulled out almost fully, before returning again to thrust her into a frenzy of anticipation and pleasure. The muscles in his arms gleamed in the candlelight as he rose up and drove into her with fierce determination. The more she moaned, the faster he thrusted, as if trying to tip her into madness.

Sheer ecstasy poured through her. Each time he thrust she moaned aloud, the force of their joining swamping her with ebullient emotions. The well of her magic was full to overflowing, and soon it would be visibly reflected in her eyes. To avert that she loosened her hands and let some of the energy escape from her fingertips into the air around them, creating a tremor in the cabin. The candle in the lantern fizzed and popped, and the captain glanced at it, but did not break his stride. He’d shifted, though, and the pressure of his body against hers—inside and out—made her grip her hands around his back again, holding tight to him, for she felt she might drown in pleasure. A garbled plea caught in her throat. Heat flamed in her groin, and her juices flowed even more readily.

“Ah, now, that is pleasure incarnate,” he gasped.

His shaft seemed to get harder still, then she felt it jerk, and he pulled free. Rolling to one side, he erupted in his fist, which he continued to pump up and down for several moments after, enthralling her.

When he saw her watching, he seemed pleased.

He kissed her mouth, then rose to clean himself.

When he returned, he began to undress her.

Dizzy with pleasure, but eager to do the appropriate thing, Maisie half sat, giving him access to her laces.

“You have undressed women before?” she murmured.

“No, but it appears to be a similar mess to a tangle of rigging, and I’ve always had a knack with unraveling that.”

That made her laugh, and when she glanced back over her shoulder at him, he smiled her way. Now that they had uncoupled she felt strangely adrift, but the way he undressed her, with care and attention, soothed her. Even so, she was embarrassed when he bared her fully.

He encouraged her to climb beneath the cover on the bed, then he carried her gown and under things to the map table, where he deposited them.

Joining her under the cover, he rested on his side, propped on one elbow to study her, observing her even more closely than he had before. Reluctant admiration shone in his eyes.

Maisie saw curiosity there, too. She had impressed him.

It hadn’t been her intention. This whole endeavor was a means to an end for Maisie, her virginity a trinket that she had to be rid of, for all it was worth to her keeper. Being admired wasn’t something she was unaccustomed to, however. She had spent so long being nurtured by Cyrus Lafayette, cocooned safely—or so she thought—in his worldly arena, that she had grown used to being watched and admired by a man.

When she looked at her lover she realized that what she saw in his eyes was very different. Admiration, yes. But he knew nothing of her secret talents, and he was admiring her as a woman, a woman who had apparently satisfied his lust.

That did surprise her. As much as she knew what she was doing by offering herself to him, and why, she did not expect that she would enjoy it herself—and she had, immensely. Nor did she expect the man she had chosen by default, in exchange for her passage to Dundee, to seem so thoroughly sated and pleasured by her company.

“There is one thing I do not understand.” He considered her, his gaze encompassing her body, stretched upon his bunk, as he spoke. “It is true that you have not lain with a man before—that much is plain to see.”

He paused and lifted the cover, the look in his eyes brooding as he considered her intimate womanly flesh at the juncture between her thighs, so freshly invaded by his rigid manhood, and the lingering streaks of blood on her inner thighs.

Maisie trembled. Every sensation she had experienced—from pleasure

to pain, and back again into ecstasy—was so close in her physical memory that when he looked at her that way it ran through her flesh like myriad lightning strikes. How strange that was, that she had been so thoroughly affected by him. Maisie marveled at it, her heart racing as she contemplated the intense pleasure that had been borne out of the pain.